Background & Context
I recently managed to save up enough gaming karma to escape the family for the day to play in the Kill Team: Operation Maximus @ Warhammer World. Here is my quick review & brain dump of a few random thoughts.

A couple of points to bare in mind, which probably skew my perspective:
– I had never been to Warhammer World before or played in any kind of tournament (even though the GW events like this are not really hardcore tournaments).
– I really don’t have much experience playing 6th Edition 40k (this was only the 3rd time I have played 6th Ed – have only played around a dozen or so games of 5th Ed): I am very much a hobbyist/kitchen war gamer.
– I really had no idea what the current UK meta for Kill Team is or if there even is such a thing.

Warhammer World as a venue

Warhammer World is a real gaming Mecca and a must visit if you are a GW fan. The main event hall is awesome, especially the 16 featured gaming tables which sport a combination of kit-bashed GW terrain, Forgeworld pieces and scratch built bits. You would need a combination of very deep pockets combined with lots of hobby time and space to be able to replicate this kind of quality gaming environment. Many of these are larger than the standard 4’x 8′ board and so would be ideal for Apocalypse or other large multi-player games.

There were 60 players at the Kill Team event and there must have been at least a dozen or so standard 4’x6′ boards free which were not in use in the event excluding the featured boards so at a rough guess there must be at least 50+ gaming tables available.

The standard boards are GW realm of battle with a selection of GW 40k ruins & forests – nice but nothing special – if you have been to a decently kitted out GW store then you know what to expect. If I recall correctly there were around a half dozen terrain bits available for each table usually around 6″x6″ in size.

Just off the hall is the Warhammer World store which is similar in size & scope to a well stocked GW store with the additional killer feature of also stocking a good selection of Forgeworld. In addition, if you want something from Forgeworld which they don’t have in stock then they can normally cast it for you on the day if you order it early enough in the day and failing that offer free worldwide shipping!

Bugman’s Bar is a good sized WHFB tavern themed pub which adjourns the main hall. Unfortunately, I was on a time clock and had to run off after the event to catch a train and so didn’t get chance to sample the beer – one for next time! They also sell some GW themed merchandise.

Finally then, the last thing to cover is the Exhibition Hall which displays a selection of painted figures straight out of the GW website & White Dwarf ads along with a couple of hobbyist displays. This I must confess that I was a tad disappointed with compared with everything else – while the the Assault on Magnir’s Crag Diorama featuring a ‘nid attack of a Space Wolf fortress was neat, it isn’t actually that large a display space and I have seen quite a few larger and better painted armies in the flesh and online which were much more inspirational. There we’re couple of examples of minis from older GW periods and games – I supposed what I would have liked was a bit more about the design process, inspirational artwork or evolution of design concepts through the last 20 years or so.

The essential elements of Kill team boil down to:
– 200pts per side; no HQ or Heavy Support.
– No model with more than 2 wounds or a 2+ save.
– No Flyers.
– No vehicle with combined armour above 33.
– No allies, fortifications or forgeworld.
– You can split fire and close combat attacks.
– You must have at least 3 figures.

Specifically for this event:
– You are playing on 4×4’ board areas.
– There is a single objective at the centre of the board.
– You are playing 8 games x 30min each over the day.
– You get to nominate 3 specialists, each with a free extra unique special rule of your choice.
– A figure must be designated the leader (usually the one with the highest leadership) and they can gain some random upgrades at the end of each game as the day progresses.

My Kill Team
I had decided to take Tau Farsight Enclave list for a couple of reasons:
– I wanted to build & paint something new from scratch for the event.
– My only fully painted armies are infantry heavy Imperial Guard and Tyranids. I have half heatedly started to paint some 30k themed marines, but haven’t got too far with them. As a contrast I wanted something pretty elite & low model count so I would be guaranteed to have it built & painted in time.
– If you combine the Crisis suits with the specialist USR abilities like Shred and Rending then you can kick out a fairly scary amount of firepower.
– Since games are so short and I haven’t played much having so few things to move would help ensure I managed to play quickly & finish games.

I figured this was plenty of firepower to deal with most MEQ type armies, with hopefully some resilience being provided by a little jump-shoot-jumping behind terrain (if the terrain turned out favourably).